ID Cards face race farce
With the impressive support of the institutionally slavish Tories, the government were assured a ‘victory’ in passing their security-unconscious proposals for a national identity register and ID Card adjunct further down the road to the legal jazz mag that is the statute book. Blunkett left in crocodile tears, Clarke stepped into the breach but despite the soap opera little harm was done to the bill (coverage of THAT was less comprehensive). Paul Dacre first performed this lurid piece of authoritarian strutting in Braille on Kimberley Quim’s knickers. They called it ‘Blind Man’s Muff’. Didn’t they?
Stop and search 70s-style will be back in fashion within the next five years and, by then, the police will be itching to racially profile, harass and abuse people who look foreign (in their esteemed, on the spot, knee-jerk, reactionary but fundamentally objective opinion). They will have gone soft after an extra hour a day filling in forms about what they’ve been doing and incredibly jealous of Community Support Officers’ higher public profile.
Surprisingly, three lines into yesterday’s ‘debate’ on this duplicitous draconia, the freshly rotunded Home Secretary mentioned Septerror the 11th. In a briefing to Labour MPs prior to the lip service session/democratic process in full flow, this was the opening gambit:
“Correct identification has become critically important. Right across the world there is a drive to increase the security of passports. Soon, the US will require a biometric passport for entry – or a special visa costing $100 per visit. This is over 80 per cent of the cost – for the extra 20 per cent we get an ID card scheme which brings extra benefits such as ensuring free public services are available to those entitled to them. We need to balance the benefits of increasing freedom to live, work and travel with making sure that freedom is not exploited…”
Correct identification has indeed become critically important, especially to those (elected and unelected) politicians here who wish to share in the spoils of US imperialism. Acquiescent identifying with AmeriCorps wins access to a source of wealth and power for an unspecified period. But you’ve got to be able to play hardball.
The ludicrously trousered twat then – intentionally, to wind up opponents and have an early policy frot with the Daily Mail (loads has been learnt from the Blunkett sting then) – claims that an ID Card/database system would save taxpayers money. Fifty million nicker a year of benefits are fraudulently claimed through false identities and they want to spend (conservatively) £10 BILLION setting up an ID system that is opaque in terms of what details will be demanded, how access to other official documents will be affected and who can access and use the information. But you’ll be able to hire a video, quickly. What are a video? Come on, you’re all used to having your details electronically filleted on a daily basis by umpteen research, cash and consumer firms trading our ID derivatives. Oh, you don’t like that either?
Leaving aside the trenchant mediocrity and vitally anachronistic Commons, government IT projects always experience major financial, technological and personnel problems in their creation, let alone execution. If they’re not sacking all the in-house staff who worked on an IT project they’re throwing money at sub contracted sub contractors who are there to sort out the problems caused by the previous sub contractor (ably covered by the diverse media serving these tech firms).
But don’t worry, this immediate and proportionate response to the threat posed to us (yes, you) by the world’s ill terrorists, who wish to steal our doctors, benefits and faces, is so essential that it won’t be compulsory for everyone for another 10 years. Remember, there’s a new wave of ethnix in town and they don’t play by our rules, etc etc I feel an aneurysm coming on. Naturally, foreigners will be compelled to have their biometrics fondled straight away (well, as soon as they can get that Microsoft Access package up and running) – another loophole to composed consideration closed; at last, I was beginning to think that a ‘gold standard of identity’ was a bit stoopid. Nice legacy, Blunks.
¶ 6:42 PM
